Gitmo inmate details torture in first book from Cuba prison

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The first book published by a longtime Guantanamo Bay inmate that describes torture, humiliation and despair during 13 years in captivity was selling briskly in the United States on Wednesday and drawing hard-won attention to his case.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s account from the US naval base in Cuba, “Guantanamo Diary” was published on Tuesday after a seven-year legal battle.

It recounts ice baths, degradation and myriad humiliations in a first-person telling of his interrogation during the American war on terrorism from a prisoner who has never been charged by the United States with a crime and was ordered released by a US federal court in 2010. That order was later vacated and Slahi, 44, has continued to be held.

The book’s publication coincided with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, seven years after the Democratic president vowed to close the prison in Cuba during his first year in office. Those efforts have been blocked by lawmakers who think the inmates pose a national security threat.

The brother of Mohamedou Slahi, Yahdih Slahi, poses with a copy of Mohamedou’s prison memoir ‘Guantanamo Diary,’ open to show pages that were redacted by the US government – AFP